Chapter II: George Wyndham’s Irish Land Bill, 1902 (1)

King Edward VII’s reign began with a fair promise for the world, or at least for the British Empire, of peace; and there was good reason to hope that a more reasonable foreign policy would be pursued than that which had so violently disturbed the last years of Queen Victoria’s reign. King Edward was by nature and habit a peacemaker, and one of his chief occupations as Prince of Wales had been to use his social influence in composing his friends’ quarrels. It was disagreeable to him that persons of his Court with whom he came in contact, and in whom he felt an interest, should be on ill terms with each other, and he had long felt a pride in bringing them together. His own life had not been altogether free from domestic storms, but these had not been due to faults of temper on his part, rather of conduct, for he was a lover of pleasure and allowed himself wide latitude in its indulgence. This had involved him in more than one scandal out of which he had always managed to emerge without serious injury to his reputation. These irregularities had indeed rather added to his popularity for they showed him to have a kindly heart and he had always proved faithful to his friends. His experience, too, had made him a good judge of character both with men and women, and gave him a certain facility in his intercourse with both which was not without its diplomatic uses. Thus when for the first time he found himself in a position to influence the conduct of foreign affairs (for Queen Victoria had been always jealous of his being entrusted with state secrets) his natural instinct was to use it in the interests of peace, especially with France, where the chief friction was found, and from the first days of his accession he busied himself in bringing about a settlement of their international differences.

As Prince of Wales he had been in the habit of spending a certain number of weeks every year on the continent, and especially in Paris, where he had become personally popular, through his somewhat Bohemian tastes and love of the French stage. In Germany he was almost equally at home, though not on the best of terms with his nephew the Emperor William, and he was on pleasant terms, too, with the Russian Court, and indeed all the Courts, having a family connection with most of them. I knew much of his private life, more than I can relate here, through certain common friends entirely in his confidence, and my feeling towards him has always been for this reason, that of a well-wisher as well as a loyal subject.

The very first object which he set himself to bring about as King was to put an end to the Boer War, not so much perhaps on any humane principle as ending what he was well aware had become the cause of vast discredit to England throughout Europe, and in this he succeeded notwithstanding the Tory obstinacy of those in power. A second scandal which he would have willingly seen ended was that of Ireland. He was aware, as very few Englishmen had discovered, how grave a scandal the long disloyalty of the Irish race was in the eyes of the outside world, and how seriously it affected the dignity of the British Empire and of himself personally as Ireland’s king. Thus the title bestowed on him, not quite seriously at first, of “Edward the Peacemaker” was in my opinion well deserved, though, through the diplomatic blunders of our Foreign Office and the incurable cupidities of our advanced imperialists, the seeds of peace sown during his reign were so perversely misapplied as to bring about the cataclysm of the general European War which ten years later overwhelmed his successor. Lord Salisbury’s retirement from office immediately after King Edward’s coronation and Mr. Balfour’s succession as Prime Minister marks the true end of the Victorian era, and the beginning of another, better let us admit in its intentions, but disastrous beyond all possible foresight on King Edward’s part, in its results of ruin for the European world.

I spent the first winter of the new reign, 1902-1903, once more in Egypt. On leaving London, I wrote “_28th Nov._, I had met Frank Lascelles at my Club and had had a long talk with him about old times and new. He had been staying at Sandringham with the King and the Emperor William and told me much about them both. It is pleasant to find him still affectionate as in old days and unspoilt by the dignities of his position. The truth is these diplomatic dignities seen close are small things and do not turn their possessors’ heads unless they come very suddenly and unexpectedly. An ambassador in the regular service blossoms gradually and has plenty of time to remember that he was once an attaché and is still a mortal. On my way through France I had travelled with Sir John Gorst (the elder) on his way to attend the opening of the great Assouan dam and to visit his son Eldon at Cairo. Talking about past events in Egypt he told me that in 1886 it had been intended by Lord Salisbury to supersede Cromer and appoint Drummond Wolff in his place and as he, Gorst, was in Cairo at the time, Stafford Northcote had commissioned him to find out how the change would be regarded in native quarters, and he had gone to Nubar, then in office, and consulted him. Nubar had told him that if Cromer went he and his colleagues in office would go too, and it was in consequence of Gorst’s report in this sense that Cromer was allowed to stay on. It is curious that it should have been Gorst, Wolff’s intimate friend, who did him this ill turn, though doubtless Gorst was only fulfilling the commission given him by his superiors. It was a decision of critical importance, for on it really rested the question of the alternative policies in Egypt, Cromer’s which was a policy of remaining and anglicizing the Nile Valley, Wolff’s of restoring National self government.”

On our voyage from Marseilles to Alexandria “I have been reading the Documents connected with the trial of Joan of Arc which have just been published. Her death is perhaps the most stupendous political crime ever perpetrated in Western Europe, certainly the blackest in English history, and this, remembering Cromwell in Ireland, the suppression of the Indian Mutiny and the desecration of the Mahdi’s tomb, is saying much. At the same time there was undeniably a certain legal case against Jeanne in the Ecclesiastical Court which condemned her. The position she took up and persisted in with regard to her visions and her mission from God, made it impossible for the Inquisition to hold a middle course concerning her. Either she had been inspired by God or she had been inspired by the devil, for in those days the idea of mental hallucination was unknown, and if not by God she was necessarily a sorceress worthy of death. In reality Jeanne was a pious, good girl, persuaded of the truth of her ‘visions’ and acting single-mindedly in obedience to them. A claim is made for her by the editor of the book that her answers to her judges have a character of supernatural wisdom. This seems to me to be exaggerated; she was often at fault, and to some very simple questions gave answers by no means wise, as when she refused to repeat the Pater Noster or to say who counselled her to put on male attire. So much for the ecclesiastics. The conduct of the English commanders Bedford, Warwick, and the rest, was infamous to the last degree and without a shadow of excuse. They burned her and scattered her ashes in the Seine for precisely the same reason that Kitchener and his scoundrel officers blew up the Mahdi’s tomb and threw his body into the Nile. It was the dastard spirit of revenge against one who had beaten English armies in the field, and of whom they had all been afraid.

“_4th Dec._—We arrived off Alexandria at daybreak, the city looming out of a bank of smoke and black cloud for all the world like Liverpool. It was only a local effect, however, and we were soon in the sunshine and on our way across the Delta, and are now at Sheykh Obeyd. Between Damanhur and Cairo I counted seven pied kingfishers, three hoopoes, two spur-winged plovers, one snipe, one false snipe, and fifty-two little white herons, a thing to note in view of the rapid extermination of birds in Egypt. We arrived at home a full hour before sunset, having found Hamouda Abdu, now made a Bey, expecting us at the Cairo station. His brother the Mufti had just left for Assouan for the opening of the great Nile dam.

“The building scheme at Kafr el Jamus has been going on apace, the whole area north of the village has been laid out in streets and squares, though these have not yet been built over, indicating the rise of the tide which will one day join us in continuous houses with Cairo. Our neighbour Selim Bey Faraj, the Christian judge of Benha, is dead, a poor unmanly creature who had managed to get on bad terms with all the Moslems round. He had got possession of forty acres of land to which he clung pertinaciously in spite of some persecution by the Arabs provoked by his own covetousness. He had a passion for litigation and was memorable for a record series of actions at law brought against his wife which he carried before every tribunal in Egypt, native and foreign, and then on appeal before the Sultan at Constantinople, and as a last resort before the Pope at Rome, and lost them all.

“_19th Dec._—The Grand Mufti (Sheykh Mohammed Abdu) came and sat with me this morning for a couple of hours talking. He had sent me Butler’s ‘Conquest of Egypt by the Arabs’ of which he had received a presentation copy and I explained its contents to him, for he does not read English. He treats Butler’s theory of the Makawkas being identical with Cyrus the Melchite Patriarch of Alexandria as rubbish. He says that it is certain the Makawkas was a Copt, the Governor of Memphis, and that he and the mass of the Copts favoured the Arab invasion which relieved them of the Roman tyranny. If it had not been so, how could the Copts have obtained such very favourable terms from Amru and enjoyed the liberty and self government they did for so many centuries after? It was only the crusades and especially the attack made on Egypt by St. Louis that caused the Copts to begin to be persecuted, they having declared for the invaders. We talked also about contemporary affairs at Constantinople. The Khedive is now on bad terms with the Sultan, having been ill- received by him this summer. Abdul Hamid refused to receive him at all until he had promised not to mention the affair of Thasos. The affair of Thasos is this: the Khedive, who is owner of the island though it forms no part of Egypt, has managed matters there so badly, raising the taxes and imposing import duties that the people of the island complained of it to the Sultan who made it a pretext for sending his own troops there as garrison. The Khedive wanted these removed, but could not get a hearing at the Palace.

“Abbas is now much under the influence of a Hungarian lady who has become his mistress. She was with him at the time of his motor car mishap, some weeks ago, when he missed his way coming back at night from Dar el Beyda and stuck fast in the sand. The _ghaffirs_ who refused to help him he put to forced labour for a week, a thing reported to the British agency and made a cause of quarrel there against him. We talked also of Midhat Pasha and the death of the Sultan Abdul Aziz. Abdu confirms the account of this given me by Dr. Dickson in 1884 as one certainly of suicide.[1] He tells me also how Midhat was starved to death at Taif. They gave him bread so hard that the old man broke his teeth over it and they allowed him no convenience of any kind in his cell for his natural wants till he died of ill treatment, and his head was then cut off and sent to Constantinople. Of Abdul Hamid, Abdu spoke as the greatest scoundrel living, a strong word for a Grand Mufti to use of his Caliph.

“_22nd Dec._—An Arabic newspaper has published a fantastic account of my life and doings. I am by birth, it says, an Irishman, born with an hereditary hatred of England, originally without fortune of my own, I espoused the daughter of a great English lord under the following condition. The lord, many years before, while travelling in the Ottoman dominions, had been assassinated, and died leaving £4,000,000 sterling to his daughter, with an injunction that she should avenge him. She consequently imposed upon her suitors that they should take oath of vengeance, and as I was the only one with sufficient courage, I had been accepted, and had since devoted my life to an attempt to ruin the Ottoman Empire. This I had sought to accomplish by stirring up the Arabs to proclaim an Arabian Caliphate. It attributes the present coolness between the Khedive and the Sultan to my machinations, as also the war now going on in Arabia between Ibn Rashid and Mubarrak of Koweit, whom I had supplied with arms, and a great deal more nonsense of the same kind. I talked the thing over with Mohammed Abdu, who suggested that I might make use of this as an opportunity for publishing in Arabic a full account of my connection with the affairs in Egypt of 1881-82.” [Out of this grew the work which occupied me all that winter in conjunction with the Mufti, and which was published five years afterwards as my “Secret History of the English Occupation of Egypt.”]

“_1st Jan._ 1903.—We celebrated the New Year (the second day of Shaban), by dining with the Mufti, and talked over the old political days of 1882.”

5th January to 14th January were occupied in a desert journey by Tel el Kebir, Salahieh, Ismaïlia and back by Kassassin and Om Kamr home. Our party consisted of Anne and me and Miss Lawrence, with eleven camels, four mares, and a donkey, Suliman Howeyti, Mutlak, and servants. I give a few extracts:

“_6th Jan._—A short day, but an amusing one. Soon after starting we crossed the track in the sand of two wolves, and followed them to a high tell. There we sat looking out over the desert, and I presently caught sight of the wolves cantering across a piece of open sand about a mile away. Then I sent Mutlak back for Suliman, and we went down with him to the place and after some search hit off the tracks, and he followed them with us for an hour back to the Kittaban, where we had camped last night. As we were going up wind, we got close to them before they saw us. Then they were away both together over the high sand ridge, and we after them full gallop. They were immense big wolves, one darker than the other—it looked quite black against the sand. When we reached the top of the ridge they were already a quarter of a mile away, with Mutlak close behind them, for he was riding Manokta, who has great speed. Anne and I did not follow beyond the ridge, but watched them going as straight as a line for Kafr Abusir, till they disappeared in the great distance. Mutlak, after following a couple of miles, had to give it up. It was a fine sight, and the gentlemen of the 11th Hussars would have had their work cut out for them if they had got upon the line. The track of the larger of the two wolves in the damp sand was as big as the palm of my hand, with immense sharp claws. After this we had a long canter to catch up our camels. We have camped about five miles from Belbeys.

“_7th Jan._—We are camped on the field of battle of Tel el Kebir, inside Arabi’s line of earthworks. These are of immense extent, though for the most part a mere ditch and bank, which any cavalry regiment would cross almost without checking speed. As we arrived we sighted a jackal running along the embankment, and in another direction half-a-dozen British soldiers in their red coats out for a day’s holiday to look at the scene of their country’s glory.

“_8th Jan._—We rode all along the front line of entrenchments, in the ditch of which are still numerous human bones and a few skulls of the ‘poor patriots, partly purchased, partly pressed,’ who died there twenty years ago. The embrasures of the half dozen forts, where the artillery was posted, are built in part of the rushes of the Wady put in to strengthen the gravel. The lines, though broken through in places by the passage of camels, are still mostly intact, and in this dry climate will last for several thousand years, and I fear outlast the fame of the peasants that built them, in their one assertion of manhood, to defend their country. The outlying fort in front of the lines was visible eastwards. It was there that Ali Rouby was stationed in command of the cavalry, Ali Rouby who betrayed his trust and allowed the English to march past him without giving warning.

“_9th Jan._—To-night we are encamped near a high sand dune, from the top of which there is a fine view of the line of the Suez Canal with the low sandhills beyond it, and far away southwards Jebel Attaka and the line of hills to Hamum; close at hand Abu Tufaïleh, where there are some palms, not far from Ismaïlia, which is also distinctly in sight. There are shepherds and camelherds of the Maaze near, some in tents, some squatted under bushes, all very happy. We saw a fox, a hare, an eagle owl and the track of two wolves. An immense spider of a light sand colour, with brown bars, was found in my tent in the morning about three inches across. I never saw the like in any of my journeys.

“_13th Jan._—Travelling all day across the great gravel plain south of the Wady in a straight line to Om Kamr. On the way we met Abdallah Ibn Majelli, of the Hannadi Arabs, out on a hawking expedition, with four dependents, two hawks, and five greyhounds. These last, as it turned out, were all descendants of our old English greyhound bitch Fly, a daughter of whose, Jerboa, we gave some fifteen years ago to Prince Ahmed. In spite of many crosses with Arab greyhounds the English type is well preserved, though the dogs are smaller and lighter. Their master told us they were quite acclimatised, and stood the heat and the hard ground as well as their own greyhounds, retaining something of their English speed. We saw them kill a hare after a rather long course among the small bushes with which the plain was sprinkled. The hare must have doubled forty times before the greyhounds got her. One of the hawks waited overhead, but did not pursue the hare after the first minute. The party had got a hubhara also in the morning. They were suspicious of us when we first rode up to them. I fancy that, being away from their own _dira_, they were afraid.

“_14th Jan._—Rode in to Sheykh Obeyd.

“_22nd Jan._—Professor Browne from Cambridge came to luncheon, bringing a letter to me from Alfred Lyall. He is most intelligent about Eastern things, not merely as an Orientalist, but also politically. He has lived some time in Persia, and has written a couple of books about it, and knows Persian and Turkish and Arabic, but having little colloquial knowledge of the last, has come here to practise it. With this view he has been attending Mohammed Abdu’s lectures on the Koran at the Azhar, and already understands them fairly well, but his accent in talking is peculiar. We took him to see Mutlak and Suliman in their tents, the first ‘houses of hair’ he has ever sat under. He has been seeing something of our English officials here, and tells amusing stories about them, especially about Dunlop, the Adviser of the Ministry of Instruction, who told him roundly that he would not have any Englishman under him who came to Egypt knowing a word of Arabic. It only gave them romantic ideas about the natives, and they would waste their time explaining what they taught to the natives in Arabic instead of making these learn English. For this reason he would not hear of accepting young men from Cambridge who had passed an examination in Arabic. He prefers to go to England, and pick up young men himself for the places vacant in his department.

“_28th Jan._—An interesting man has been here, one of Ibn Rashid’s slaves from Haïl, a half-bred Arab negro born in Nejd, by name Eïd. He is here on a political mission of some kind to find out what is going on in the world, and possibly to seek alliances for the new Emir Abd el Aziz Ibn Rashid. His master is just now in rather bad luck, having lost a considerable battle to Ibn Saoud, and been driven out of Aáred. He gave us a graphic account of the battle, and how Ibn Rashid’s standard had been passed on from hand to hand by his _khayal_ (horsemen) as one after the other was slain, he himself taking it at last, though Mutlak declares it fell into the hands of Ibn Saoud. According to Eïd, Ibn Saoud has now gained possession of Aáred, and is living at Derayyeh, but Kassim is still under Ibn Rashid, who has his Wakil at Bereydah. I asked him what part the Dowlah (the Ottoman Government) had played in the matter, and he protested that it had played none, except that the Sultan had sent a present of Martini rifles and cannons to Abdul Aziz on his accession. Of the English he said that Koweit was full of them. Mohammed Abdu, who came in while we were talking, helped to cross-question him, and there is no doubt the man is what he states he is, for he knows all the politics of Nejd past and present; he is quite new to the outside world, having travelled by way of Jof to Damascus, where he left his _delûl_ and came on by steamer from Beyrout, a strange experience for him. He has stopped the night with us, and this morning he is to go back straight to Haïl. I gave him a piece of parting advice, and a message to his master and to Hamoud and Majid, and the rest of them there. ‘Listen,’ I said, ‘to my word, and let these listen. There is danger to the Arabs from the Dowlah, and there is danger also from the English; have nothing to do with either of them. Make peace at once with Ibn Saoud and remain quietly in your own country; leave Mubarrak alone at Koweit and leave Ibn Saoud alone in Aáred, otherwise the Government of the Ibn Rashids at Haïl will perish. You have seen here what comes of English intervention, how the Khedive’s Government has been undermined and destroyed, and so it will be with you in Arabia if you do not mind your own affairs. Have nothing to do with either our Government or the Sultan’s, your own is better than either. You have liberty at Haïl and you are happy under it, and may it last a hundred years.’ I enforced this advice with a present of five pounds as a proof of my sincerity, and he seemed much impressed. I feel sure that he will deliver my message to Abdul Aziz, whether his master follows my advice or not.” [This incident is of interest as fixing the date of the beginning of the rival intrigues on the one hand of the Ottoman Government, and on the other of the Government of India in Peninsula Arabia with large distributions of firearms to the rival tribes, and the stirring up of strife, leading to the larger results we have seen within the last years in the Hedjaz.]

“_30th Jan._—To-day Mahmud Pasha Sami came to see me with the Mufti. I had not seen him since we were in Ceylon nineteen years ago, a very distinguished gentleman now in his old age, a poet and a man of letters, nearly blind, who has to be led by the hand.

“Also later one Abdul Kerim Murad of Medina, whose brother had given Anne her first Arabic lessons in 1880. He has since been travelling round a large part of the Mohammedan world during the last few years, including Nigeria and Senegal, of which he gave a most interesting account. [Especially of Sokoto in Nigeria, describing the great wealth and industry of that city and its honourable government since overthrown by the English.]

“_8th Feb._—Hamouda Bey, the Mufti’s brother, was here to-day. He has been seriously ill of late through overwork at his legal business. He has been recently given the rank of Bey, and in virtue of his new title was invited the other night to the Khedive’s ball, as to which he gave us a naïve and amusing account. ‘I went,’ he said, ‘with two friends, men like myself in the legal profession, and we arrived among the first, none of us having ever been at such an entertainment before. As we were depositing our coats and umbrellas, for it had rained, at the vestiary, suddenly I saw in a mirror a sight reflected such as I had never in my life beheld, two women who were standing behind me, naked nearly to the waist. I thought it must have been some illusion connected with my illness and I was very much frightened. Their faces and arms and everything were displayed without any covering, and I thought I should have fallen to the ground. I asked what it meant and whether perhaps we had not come to the right house, but my friends took me on into the ball-room, where they showed me a number more women in the like condition. “Who are they?” I inquired, and they told me, “These are the wives of some of our English officials.” “And their husbands,” I asked, “do they permit them to go out at night like this?” “Their husbands,” they answered, “are here,” and they pointed out to me Mr. Royle, the Judge of Appeal, before whom I had often pleaded, a serious man and very stern, as the husband of one of them. This judge I saw dancing with one of these naked ladies, gay and smiling and shameless, like a young man. “And he is here,” I said, “to see his wife thus unclothed? and he dances with her publicly.” “That,” they answered, “is not his wife, it is the wife of another.” I was dumbfounded with shame for our profession. Just then I saw Lord Cromer pass by. His coat was unbuttoned and showed his shirt down to here (pointing to his stomach). I did not see Lord Cromer dance, because as I was looking the Khedive entered the room leading another of these ladies, and there was a crush of those near me to look at him. I found myself jammed close to two of the naked ones, their shoulders and bosoms pressed against me. I was terribly ashamed. As soon as I could free myself, I called to my companions, “Come away, my dear friends, this is no proper place for us,” and I took them with me home. We would not stop for the refreshments which were being served and where wine was being poured. The Khedive calls himself a good Moslem. He says he never drinks wine and leads a respectable life, but this entertainment of his was not respectable, and he himself was there, and they tell me that the ladies of his household are allowed by him to look from behind a screen at all these abominations.’ Such was Hamouda’s naïve account of his adventure. ‘My dear fellow,’ I said, ‘you do not understand that this is our work of civilizing the East, wait another twenty years and you will see all the Cadi’s of Egypt with your brother the Mufti among them, dancing with ladies even more naked than these, and who knows, going with their own heads bare.’ ‘I can understand everything,’ he said, ‘except this, that the husbands of these ladies were there, actually there, in the dancing room, and did not send them home.’

“_19th Feb._—Mr. Bourke Cockran called, having been introduced to me by John Redmond as the most prominent Irishman in America. I found him an intelligent, old-fashioned Irishman, and altogether worthy. He told me he had been one of the strongest opponents of the Philippine policy of the American Government, and that he hoped yet the Philippines would get their Home Rule. He had seen George Wyndham in Ireland, and had talked to him, and was confident he meant well with his Irish Land Bill.

“_25th Feb._—To Cairo for the first time this winter to see the Khedive. I found him grown older and less fat and gay, with a rather harassed look, like a man who had been worried and bullied, but whether by Cromer or by his new Hungarian mistress I do not know, but a new lady he certainly has, for we met him out camel riding last week with her, attended by an eunuch and with a soldier riding behind them. The lady was in European dress, with a gay hat, as if for a garden party, and they were all mounted on handsome white camels. It was in the desert near Kafr el Jamus.

“To-day he began at once to me about the different troubles he had had in the Waïli and other affairs, and he went on to complain of Mohammed Abdu’s ingratitude, in having continued to be friends with a certain Reshid who had sinned against him. I defended the Mufti on this point and exhorted the Khedive to make up the quarrel. I cannot help liking Abbas in spite of his many vacillations and inconstancies. He has this merit, that he always speaks out his mind, and is never offended at one’s speaking one’s own. I fancy Cromer must hold some secret rod over him and make him feel it from time to time.

“There is a scandal at Cairo which is grieving English society, Lady R. having gone to a ball with her legs bare and dressed as a _saïs_. This is considered a terrible impropriety, not so much for the thing itself as because ‘she had just been dining with Lady Cromer,’ and ‘natives were present.’ There has been a case of assault by two Bedouins on Englishmen at Mariut about which the Khedive also told me, the matter concerning him personally as he has property at Mariut.

“_26th Feb._—Lunched at the Mufti’s, Professor Browne being also there. It is surprising with what fluency Browne now speaks Arabic, which he only knew as a scholar without having ever spoken it when he came here two months ago. He has been attending the Mufti’s lectures at the Azhar, and tells me they are admirable and very fearless, and that he has a ready facility in answering objections made to him by the old-fashioned interpreters of the Koran. I talked to the Mufti about the Khedive’s complaint against him and he will write to His Highness and explain the mistake. A reconciliation between them is most necessary in public interests. Acting together they are able to effect much, apart they neutralize each other and are powerless.

“_6th March._—Mohammed Abdu brought Sheykh Reshid, the cause of the Khedive’s wrath, to see me, who seems a worthy man, and with him Hafiz Ibrahim, a Fellah poet, with whom we discussed the Moallakat. They all three maintained that the best Arabic poetry was not that of the Ignorance but of the second century of the Hejrah. This is quite contrary to our English ideas, but for Eastern ears the standard of merit is different from ours. What the learned here admire in poetry is the prosody, not the meaning of the verse. They care very little for the naïvetés of the pre-Islamic poets, regarding them only as blemishes, and they cannot understand that there is any merit at all in the Abu Zeyd cycle. I could see that these gentlemen despised me for admiring it.

“_14th March._—There has been a very large wolf in the garden for the last week or ten days, which has been hanging about the tents at night, where the sheep are folded just outside our wall. There are several flocks here just now as there is no pasture in the hills, and the wolf has come in with them probably. We have seen him more than once by daylight, and at night he has howled near the house. Two nights ago, however, a dozen new tents were pitched just outside with a quantity more sheep belonging to the Howeytat on their way back from the Riff, where they have been at bersim. The wolf came upon them about midnight. There was a terrible noise of dogs barking and men shouting and shots fired. In the morning I went out to see what had happened, and old Eid came to me from the Assara and told me they had shot the wolf, and a little further off I saw a group of Arabs digging a grave, as I thought for the dead wolf. On coming close, however, I found it was no wolf but a large dog, very old and very lean and covered with blood. They told me that it was a mad dog which had rushed in among the sheep and which they had killed. The singular part of the story, however, is that they have not only buried the dog, but have made up a regular grave for it exactly like a Moslem grave with tall bones set up at either end and neatly trenched. It is a new thing for me that a dog should be thus honoured, one I should have thought impossible in a Mohammedan country. Suliman, whom I set to find out the truth about it, says they buried the dog for fear that their own dogs should eat it and so go mad, but it does not explain the grave.

“_15th March._—Our Mowled of Sheykh Obeyd. There were present the four chief Sheykhs of the villages round as well as Yusuf Abu Shenab, Hassan Musa el Akkad, and a number more important neighbours in addition to the Arabs. Professor Browne, who had lunched with us, came on for the festival. The feast was a general one, the poor of all our four parishes being fed. One incident only marred it in the display of horsemanship. Hamdan, an Agheyli from Bereyda, got his arm hurt with a _jerid_ to which a point had been maliciously given with a nail, and he accused Mutlak of the treachery, but though Mutlak had given the blow it had been given with one of a number of _jerids_ got ready for the occasion, and it was probable a trick was played on him through jealousy. The wound, though only a scratch, has produced much ill-feeling.

“I have finished my Moallakat translation with Anne, and an introduction to the volume. We hope to get it published during the summer.

“_16th March._—Arabi lunched with us and remained talking the whole afternoon. He gave me a full account of the events of 1881-82, more especially of his relations with Khedive Tewfik in 1881, the Circassian conspiracy of the following year, the riot of Alexandria, and the battle of Tel el Kebir, a very plain-spoken narrative as to which I cross- questioned him closely. It impressed both Anne and me, and confirmed our high opinion of him morally and intellectually. His present circumstances, poor man, are to be pitied. He has returned to Egypt after twenty years’ exile and finds a cold shoulder from every one in authority, from the Khedive, who has not forgiven him his rebellion, from Cromer, who considers him a nuisance, and from his fellow countrymen at Cairo, who, misled by the fanciful tales invented by the French Press of his having sold his country to the English, regard him with unmerited suspicion. We are sorry for him, but I fear it is too late to set things right.

“_23rd March._—On Saturday John Dillon and his wife, who are in Egypt, came to spend the day. He gave us much Irish news and spoke of the danger George’s land bill is running through the growing weakness of the Government. He fears they will never get it through the House. He expressed a high opinion of Winston Churchill’s ability, but says he is even more unscrupulous than his father was. He thinks also that the abstention of the Irish party this session from its long opposition will have done harm by making people suspect a secret understanding between Wyndham and Redmond. Nevertheless, he says, Irish prospects were never higher than now, and Home Rule in some form must come soon. We talked, too, about Egyptian affairs, which he knows pretty well, having always taken an interest in them, and I have given him letters to Hafiz Effendi Awwad and Carton de Wiart to help him in my absence to a right understanding of the situation, for we leave for England to-day.”

We left Egypt for England on 24th March and arrived there on the 28th.

The next two months, which I spent principally in London, were mainly occupied by me in using what influence I possessed with the Irish Party to carry through George Wyndham’s Land Bill, as to which he had appealed to me for help. The negotiations, of which I have a complete record in my diary, are extremely interesting, and though they have no direct concern with the main subject of this volume, namely, Egypt and our foreign policy, I give them in their entirety here.

“_28th March._—Arrived in London and glad to be back. On issuing from the Mont Cenis tunnel yesterday I found an English newspaper with a report of the introduction of George’s Land Bill in Parliament. I had hoped to be in time for it, for it is the biggest piece of legislation that has been attempted for Ireland since Catholic Emancipation. George seems to have presented his case splendidly, and so far has met with no opposition. It is a very daring scheme, and follows closely all he told me about it last autumn. I never thought he would be allowed to have it so much his own way—for it involved a hundred millions sterling—especially after Brodrick’s antics at the War Office and the reaction for economy.

“_29th March (Sunday.)_—Lunched in Mount Street. Windsor and Lady Windsor—nobody else—our talk mostly about George and the Irish Land Bill, all in high praise. Then to Wentworth House, where Judith is staying, and all there too in high good humour about Ireland. Lastly to Belgrave Square where new raptures about George and his bill—how could it be otherwise? George wants to see me.

“_30th March._—Lady Windsor came this morning. She has seen George since yesterday, and brings me a message from him to the effect that I could help him with the Irish members about the bill. Of course I shall be delighted to do this, and it is all the easier because Redmond wrote some weeks ago asking me to let him know as soon as I returned to England. I must see George however first.

“_31st March._—Found George at his breakfast in Park Lane at the hour appointed yesterday and he began at once about his Irish Land Bill. He told me what a desperate fight he had had to get it adopted by the Cabinet and how nearly it had more than once been wrecked. Even within forty-eight hours of his bringing it forward in the House all had seemed lost, and it was only the splendid support given him by Arthur Balfour that had carried the day, as I understand him, by a single vote against Chamberlain’s opposition—he did not mention Chamberlain by name. Ritchie too had supported him, and the silent vote of Akers Douglas and the Tory phalanx.

“Then he gave me a brief historical account of how he had engineered the whole affair during the autumn and winter. The first thing had been to secure the ‘Times,’ without which nothing could have been effected. He would not say exactly how this had been done, though he promised to tell me that and every detail some day, but I imagine Arthur Balfour must have promised Walter his long expected peerage. Then George had used his personal influence on the landlords, had gone to stay with Dunraven, had encouraged Mayo, and had expostulated privately with the leaders of the Landlords’ Convention when they proved obdurate. The result had been the agreement come to at the Land Conference. He spoke in high praise of the Nationalist leaders and said O’Brien had behaved splendidly, quite justifying the character of patriotism I had given him when we had last talked about him. It was to help O’Brien to get out of his difficult position towards the evicted tenants that he had inserted the clause in his Bill providing for their reinstatement.

“I told him how at a critical moment I had written to Redmond, and he highly approved. Everything had worked out most fortunately till Parliament met in the Spring. Then the financial difficulties had begun. I asked him who had suggested the finance of his scheme, and he assured me he had done the whole thing entirely himself, which is also what his mother told me on Sunday when she described to me how he had always had a mathematical head at school and how at an examination he had drawn without a mistake the whole of the figures of the second ‘Book of Euclid’ from memory. Since the meeting of Parliament, however, he had been in most tempestuous waters. Brodrick’s Army Bill had frightened everybody by its extravagance, and when the Funds fell to 90 he had thought all was lost. Only Ritchie encouraged him then, and he quoted a word of Ritchie’s that had been repeated to him. Ritchie had said, ‘Brodrick asks for millions, but he can’t explain what he wants them for. But Wyndham explained everything and _convinced_ one—or (correcting himself after a pause) the contrary.’ But for Ritchie, the whole thing would have had to be abandoned as involving the Government in ruin. Then came the loss of the two by-elections, Woolwich and Rye, and the Cabinet meeting on Chamberlain’s return (from South Africa). What I gather from George is that the Liberal Unionists opposed the Bill. The Duke of Devonshire, Lords Lansdowne and Londonderry, and probably also Brodrick and Lord George Hamilton, all these being Irish absentee landlords or representing them.

“I asked him about Chamberlain, but he was reticent. ‘I will tell you now,’ he said, ‘exactly what the present situation is. When I got up in the House of Commons last week, I felt that I had my back against a wall and was fighting for my life; and, as often happens in such circumstances, I was able to do my very best. The question was so complicated a one that I knew I could not hope to make it clear to everybody, but I knew that on each section of it there was a group that would understand on one side or other of the House. So I turned to each in turn and got into a condition of magnetic touch with each, so that they leaned forward towards me and I could see that they understood. So much was this the case that, as I approached the City financial part of my argument, I felt, though I could not see, that there was somebody behind me in close sympathy, and I turned round and asked “Am I right?” “Quite right,” was the answer. It was from Edgar Vincent. Thus I was able to get through the whole speech without wearying my audience, and at the end had succeeded in gaining the sympathy in turn of every section. This for the moment. Since the first reading, however, and the publication of the Bill, one of the most representative members of the old Tory phalanx has been to Arthur Balfour and has represented to him that much of the Bill is hard to swallow, and that the only thing that makes it possible for them is the idea that the settlement is a _final_ one of the whole land quarrel, and that unless the Irish members will declare in this sense there will be a revolt. The situation, therefore, is very critical, and if you can do anything to make the Irish leaders understand how not only I but the whole cause of Irish land legislation may be wrecked by a lack of discretion on this particular head you will be doing a good service, and you may use your discretion about our talk. I have twice thought of my own resignation and political ruin a certainty, and it may be so yet. But if it happens it will equally ruin Irish hopes, for they will never again find an Irish Secretary who, with my example before him, will dare to risk so much or go so far. Of course I quite understand that the present vote may really not be quite final. The millions may not prove quite enough, and perhaps in a few years three or four millions may be necessary. But when the time comes and the thing has proved a success nobody will then grudge a supplement. Only, to declare now that it is only an instalment and not final would ruin everything and we could not pass the Bill.’

“We then went on to talk about possible Home Rule in some form as an ultimate result of the peace to be established in Ireland between landlords and tenants, and he admitted that, if all united in demanding it, it could not be refused. Indeed, George admits himself to be theoretically a Home Ruler, though he does not consider Home Rule as yet within the range of practical politics. The less said about it just now the better.

“Lastly, he told me how he had captured certain Irish millionaires, and induced them to put their capital into Irish concerns. Lord Iveagh had promised to finance a motor company for the sale of agricultural produce, and an Irish American publisher had offered him £100,000 for any enterprise he liked, suggesting a paper mill on the Shannon. This done, I went home and tried to find Redmond, and made an arrangement with his wife to lunch with them to-morrow, and I am to report progress to Sibell and George at breakfast on Friday.

“_1st April._—Oliver Howard called on me this morning to talk over his plan of going to Nigeria. Being tired of London and domestic happiness, and being Chamberlain’s private secretary at the Colonial Office, he has volunteered for service under Lugard. Lugard has just made a raid on Kano and Sokoto, mopping up both kingdoms ‘in Imperial interests.’ Nothing with less excuse has been perpetrated in the history of British aggression. The two States, say with twenty millions of inhabitants, were happy and prosperous, and peaceable, carrying on industries established and flourishing for a thousand years, and now, to gratify Lugard’s ambition, they are to be annexed to the pitiful British Empire, and all the English world is pleased. Oliver tells me Lady Lugard (ex Flora Shaw) has come home very angry with the Nigerian climate, which has laid her on her back. I would have tried to deter Oliver from going, as he is too good for such bad work, but he is already engaged, and all I could do was to advise him to make it a condition he should be employed inland, and not on the river. Still, it is about an even chance that he leaves his bones in the country. [Which he did.]

“Lunched with John Redmond and his wife. I told him in all possible confidence what George’s difficulty was, and the precarious position of the Bill. He said, ‘I quite understand Wyndham’s difficulties, but you must believe me when I say mine are quite as great. There is a party in Ireland headed by Davitt and Archbishop Walsh that is determined to go against the Bill, and there is sure to be wild talk at the Convention. I saw Wyndham yesterday evening, and he told me something about the necessity of accepting the Bill as final, not as an instalment, and I am entirely in accordance with all he said. Of course the Bill will require amending, but I will do my best to get it through, and let the English imagine if they like that they are doing a fine and generous thing. But we can’t stop the talk. I can depend thoroughly on William O’Brien who thinks exactly as I do about it, and all our Parliamentary party, even John Dillon, who I know does not like the Bill. He would be quite loyal to us. The difficulty is outside. Davitt is a land nationaliser, and is altogether opposed, and so is Archbishop Walsh. If it would make matters easier I shall be happy to communicate with Wyndham through you, and arrange what amendments it would be possible for him to accept. It would be easier to do it through you than directly, for it is difficult for him to talk quite frankly to me, and I have to go openly and knock at his door in the House of Commons when I want to speak to him, without knowing who there may be there with him. It would be very dangerous for it to get about that there was an understanding between us. But if he will do it through you it will be safe. So you must let me keep in touch with you. I go to Ireland to-morrow till after the Convention, which will be on the 16th. The critical time lies between this and then, and there may be things to communicate.’

“And so it was arranged between us. I asked him what his view was about a Catholic University. He said, ‘You must not be shocked with me if I say I don’t care twopence about it. Of course it would be a good thing, but it is not essential, and it is no good weighting ourselves with it till we have got the other job through.’ This was almost word for word the answer I gave George yesterday to the same question.

“_2nd April._—Breakfast again with George and told him of Redmond’s proposal in regard to the amendments and of communicating through me. To this George readily assented, and it is agreed between us that after the Easter recess he shall meet Redmond at my house and discuss all things amicably there. He had already met Redmond once at Dunraven’s, but it will be much more confidential here in Chapel Street. George has to speak to-morrow at Manchester, and will at my suggestion say something in the direction of still further relieving the evicted tenants. I hope it may all turn out well.

“_4th April._—A letter has come from Redmond of so important a kind that I dare not send it on to George, but shall wait till I see him on Monday. In it Redmond gives a list of the amendments which will probably be adopted at the Dublin Convention, and he expresses a special hope in regard to the King’s visit just announced for Ireland, that the King will not receive any addresses while there. Redmond says that, while the Irish are quite prepared to receive the King in a friendly way, they cannot officially show loyalty.

“_6th April._—Arriving in London I went to Park Lane, where I found George waiting for me. I showed him Redmond’s letter, and we went through the various points of it together, and he then went into his inner room to write an answer, leaving me to talk to Sibell meanwhile. At the end of about three-quarters of an hour he came back with the paper he had written, which, considering the difficulty and importance of the questions dealt with, I hold to be a considerable feat. In it he treats each of Redmond’s suggested amendments, agreeing to modifications of his bill as to most of them, but putting his foot down on all demand of increasing the bonus of twelve millions. In regard to that he says:

“‘I fear that any attempt, and above all any attempt _now_, to increase the £12,000,000 would give a _dangerous_ advantage to those in England who are hostile to the whole plan. _I think this is a great danger_.’